Tag: writing

Progress!

If you remember, my current work-in-progress is a set of three novellas that tell a story of a young couple giving up a baby for adoption in the 1970s and the child finding them in the mid-80s. The final novella from the point of view of the adopted child, had been published in a novella collection, and the rights have reverted back to me, and I’ve been developing into a longer work. I started with revising the section that had already been published into something with more weight to it.

After i completed that section, I started on the first section, narrated by the birth father of his moving to Counce, Tennessee and meeting his girlfriend and how their relationship developed. I still had the original novel written in 2006 that I chopped down into the novella in 2017. I pulled flashback scenes from the novel to set up this first section and wrote more material about his life and . . .

Last night I finished the first draft of that section!

So tomorrow I will start on the middle section from the birth mom’s point of view about the years after giving up her daughter. And I have only a handful of half-bakes ideas for this part–I’ll be drafting almost from scratch. So that’s going to be. . . interesting. Definitely stretching my storytelling chops. I hope to finish it before Hurricane Baby publishes in late August this year.

So that’s my new goal. Wish me well!

New Opportunity

So we have our first festival invitation! The Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has invited me to be on a panel and will have my books available for the sale tent at the event in November 2024. So that was a nice surprise when I got the message.

I am still holding out hope for the Mississippi Book Festival in September 2024. It’s only a few weeks after my book launch, which is now about two months away. But it’s not unusual for them to finalize their author list at the last minute, so I still have time to wait.

My work-in-progress is getting more manageable! I have two half-chapters and a set of scenes that aren’t connected together yet. I will figure them out. Maybe I will finish this section before the end of the month. Then I have the whole middle to write (from scratch!) That’s too terrifying to think about right now, though.

I did a very rewarding this yesterday–I talked via Zoom to students from my former MFA program about my journey to publication, along with two other alumni who are publishing books–Karol Lagodski and Lauren Rhoades. We just talked about pushing through and persevering and not giving up, sprinkled in with some practical advice along the way. It was so good to see everyone that runs the program and to meet the new faces as well. I hope I can do more of those kind of talks in the future.

I guess that’s all my news for today! Wishing everyone well!

In the Writing Trenches

I have been letting my work-in-progress, Looking for Home, absolutely kick my fanny the past two months. I started off with a good bit of material that I had pulled out of the older manuscript, and I had one chapter where I could see it absolutely play out like a movie with some filling in.

Then I decided to write the opening chapter and I froze up solid for the better part of a month and a half. I couldn’t figure out how to start it and get in the backstory needed and get into the action, too. I wrote five pages that I knew shouldn’t be the beginning, but I couldn’t think of how else to do it. It had Carlton with his family making the road trip moving from Pass Christian, Mississippi to Counce, Tennesse. After I finished the trip, I cut those first pages and started with the ending scene and wrote 13 new pages to get to an existing three-page scene I already had.

I think those were the hardest 16 pages of my life to date. I was working in the consciousness of a sixteen-year-old boy who’d lost his mama a few months before, and that was foreign territory, to say the least. Trying to get him settled into the world he’d been thrown into and him not doing such a very good job with it. I’m doing one thing a little differently; I’ll have scenes that come in my head, and I know they need to be in the story. But I have no idea where they’ll go. That’s the fun part of it all I suppose.

So that’s why you haven’t been hearing much about the work-in-progress–It’s been absoluely refusing to cooperate. Until now. Maybe I can get the next chapter wrestled to the ground. Until next time . . .

Events and More

I am starting to have a few events start to shape up around my book launch! I have an interview for a podcast coming up–I’m so far supposed to do the interview this weekend, then it will be edited and released whenever the host has a spot to insert it. Hopefully I can post the audio link to the Tombigbee Tales podcast here on my site.

Right around launch I have a signing at my local independent bookstore, Lemuria Books in Jackson. I had filled out a form and left a review copy at the store a few weeks ago, and they contacted me back for Saturday, August 24, at noon. It’s only a few days after launch but before football season really gets in gear. So that was a wonderful feeling to have getting this one set up.

The next week I am going to try to give back to my community back home in Ackerman with a reading and signing event at Ackerman Library, a place that was a home-away-from home for me. If mom needed to run errands or grocery shop or go to the bank, she’d drop me off there–and I was in heaven. No one ever bothered me, and I never bothered anyone else with so many books around me to read! I feel like that will be a real full-circle event for me. It is currently set for September 5 at 6 p.m. (again working round the football games!)

The final event that’s fallen into place recently is being part of a forum on Hurricane Katrina literature in observance of the twentieth anniversary of the storm. So that will be all the way off into next year with an event in conjunction with Prince George County’s Office of Human Rights in Virginia.

Of course, I am aiming to schedule more–the goal is to have at least one event/speaking opportunity a month for the first year the book is out. So this feels like a really good start! Three-and-a-half months before it’s out in stores. I wonder when the reality kicks in. I still feel like this is all some kind of dream. But it’s a good one. If it’s a dream, it’s one of the best.

Moving Along

I finished a good twelve-page chunk of my work-in-progress done this week! Now I need to map what happens in the next few sections so I’ll have more to work from.

I go to a local writing retreat next weekend and hopefully learn a little about marketing my work. I will be armed with my bookmarks for Hurricane Baby to pass around if anyone is interested. I’m looking forward to hearing from the other speakers as well.

Otherwise I have had a rough week, and I don’t really want to get into it.

Next week I’ll have a little more to talk about that’s good. Watch this space!

News From My Publisher

My book has been live with a pre-order button on Amazon less than a week. On Friday, my publisher sent me this screenshot of my Amazon sales rankings, out of all the books published to the site.

To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. I don’t know how the algorithms on Amazon work. But my publisher indicated that these numbers mean the books are getting A LOT of attention from somewhere. Pre-orders aren’t tracked by Amazon until the book is released. And the rankings change hourly. But for a debut author with a small press to be able to be discovered enough to generate these numbers? Bizarre.

I am hoping, hoping, hoping to get back into my work-in-progress tomorrow. I have a lot of angst to work out, and I think this new book is the place to do it. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Housekeeping Details

Just heard from my publisher–my full book cover is final, and I have a QR code I can slap on all my marketing materials so people can order just by pointing their phones at it! I just ordered VistaPrint bookmarks that I plan to hand out at events.

I have one event coming up–Hurricane Baby the play is having a staged reading coming up. I’ve got everything ready to go to it all lined up–hotel room, ride, etc. I’m looking forward to that. More details will be available closer to time. But I’m looking forward to it.

My new writing has been on hold lately. We have had a lot going on in my family and in my work life, and I’ve honestly been too exhausted to concentrate on my work-in-progress. I hope to be able to change that soon.

And my publisher has said pre-orders are already coming in. So that made me feel good!

Whew. Will ride already. Wish me well with further info and events to come soon! See code below to order Hurricane Baby: Stories for delivery August 2024!

Not Quite Ready

Reading proof pages hopefully for the last time. So that has been the work this weekend.

I’ve also been busy on my work-in-progress Looking For Home. I’ve got the last third as far as I can take it without having the other parts written. And knowing me, I’ll do something in the other two sections that will necessitate more changes in that last third section. So I am pushing along!

It’s been a little difficult doing the switch because that old talk in my head about wasting my time is still there! I was hoping that having a published book would quell that voice forever. But apparently in my mind, I’m still not allowed to write just because I enjoy it and I’m good at it.

I have to remind myself that I don’t have competing priorities anymore. I work for an employer and that’s important. I do some housework and cook meals at night. But otherwise, my free time is for me to work on what I feel led to do. My writing is one way I feel that I can reach out to people and make them think about things they might would rather not. And that’s important. No matter what else needs doing–my writing is important, and I can spend time on it without guilt.

Back to proofreading! Onward!

Single-Digit Fidget

My publishing company keeps saying we go to print six months before publication.

You know what?

That’s this week on February 20!

So I am nervously anticipating that I get to put up pre-order links and my new website page this week as well!

I have been reading about all the emotional whiplash that happens to new authors with an eye to moderating my expectations and all that. I like being prepared. Because I don’t want this whole wonderful accomplishment to throw me off emotionally. Because my stability is worth a lot to me.

But it’s up to me to manage that–so I am trying to keep my expectations in line with the fact that I’m a new author, I don’t have a big pre-made audience to sell to, and I have to understand all that I can control is my reaction to events. I can’t control what others do or say. I can’t control what kind of reviews i get or anything like that. I can just put it out and do what I can to move the needle–and leave the rest up to God.

Like I said when I prayed that day to give my pledge to the church. It’s all up to him. I’m just to give him the glory that is his. I gave the book my best shot for success revising and sending it out. I plan to keep doing that with events and publicity where I can get them. I’m going to start to introduce the book the first weekend of March at the Mississippi Philological Association at my alma mater, the Mississippi University for Women.

I’ll be reading what I can of Still Waters, the first story in the collection, at a panel of other creative writers. I’ll attend other panels while I’m there, probably just the creative writing ones. It’s kind of a full-circle moment for me–when I was in my last year of grad school at Mississippi State University, I read a paper I had written on James Thurber, the great American comic writer, at the MPA Conference that year–also at the W. So I will mention that before I start reading.

(My parents were at that conference since it was only a few miles away from their house. My daddy later asked me was my paper supposed to be funny? I said yes sir, it was. He was scared the audience was laughing at me in a mean way so he decided to check.)

So that’s what I’m preparing for this week. Wish me well!